People are rather simple-minded when it comes to "getting bigger". For some, it's getting fighters while others will take any big man. I have higher standards.

I personally like guys who can and are willing to engage in battles for the puck and actually win those puck battles. Someone who can dominate the boards, have the speed to steal pucks, strength to not get pushed over. And of course, crashing the net is also a plus. Not every bigger guy can do these things either, but there is a higher chance of guys who can with larger players.

Grit often comes in small players which Habs fans hate. Fans want a huge soft team...bunch of big guys like Antropov Ponikarovsky etc

Not true.

And I'm still looking for anyone who even brought Antropov or Ponikarovsky's name into the conversation.

You're talking as if grit was to be found in small players and that they are tough to play against. I can tell you haven't done any sport of any kind at any competitive level. It doesn't even need to be hockey for that matter. Size matters. It's physics 101. And as gritty as he may be when he's on his game, a 5'8 player will always have more difficulty applying pressure than a 6'2 player. He'll have a harder time winning his battles, and is more likely to get abused than a bigger one.

But keep coming up with those ridiculous non-arguments about how people are talking about Antropov and Ponikarovsky when it's clearly not the case.

I'm sure you enjoyed Tom Pyatt's physicality and that for you, Halpern is a must-sign this summer...

And I'm still looking for anyone who even brought Antropov or Ponikarovsky's name into the conversation.

You're talking as if grit was to be found in small players and that they are tough to play against. I can tell you haven't done any sport of any kind at any competitive level. It doesn't even need to be hockey for that matter. Size matters. It's physics 101. And as gritty as he may be when he's on his game, a 5'8 player will always have more difficulty applying pressure than a 6'2 player. He'll have a harder time winning his battles, and is more likely to get abused than a bigger one.

But keep coming up with those ridiculous non-arguments about how people are talking about Antropov and Ponikarovsky when it's clearly not the case.

I'm sure you enjoyed Tom Pyatt's physicality and that for you, Halpern is a must-sign this summer...

I want the team to get players who play an aggressive, physical style, to complement our skill guys, but comments like yours are a bit off. You don't like Prust ? Would you take the bigger Moen instead ? And as for big players go, Winnipeg sure is very successful with their big players...

Detroit had generational talent throughout their roster all those years. We're far from being that.

In fact, having a more balanced team with a lot of grit is easier to do than acquiring generational talent nowadays.

I was replying to Southernhab , he says we need goons on our roster. I just pointed out that Det has played pretty well for many years with not much grit or goons. The average size/weight of their roster most of those years would be what the habs are now.

If Habs had one natural goal scorer or playmaker none of this OTT nonsense would be relevant. Habs could play with speed and not worry about the goonery but they don't have that one dominant player yet. Hoping Galyenchuk can become that

People are rather simple-minded when it comes to "getting bigger". For some, it's getting fighters while others will take any big man. I have higher standards.

I personally like guys who can and are willing to engage in battles for the puck and actually win those puck battles. Someone who can dominate the boards, have the speed to steal pucks, strength to not get pushed over. And of course, crashing the net is also a plus. Not every bigger guy can do these things either, but there is a higher chance of guys who can with larger players.

And for me, 5' 11", 200 lbs is adequately big.

Mike Richards comes to mind. I'd take him on this team in a heart beat.

Re-signing Desharnais makes me question if Bergevin *really* knows who his core players are. Eller is definitely way ahead of DD on my depth chart, arguably ahead of Plekanec too. I said it in game 1 and I'll say it again:

Lars Eller is our only center built for the playoffs. Galchenyuk doesn't count yet.

the following have to go period

Gio , DD , Dias , Moen , Colby , Kabbie , Webber

Markov must not be resigned , he cant play 5/5 and he is worn out at only 50 games , move him next season , dont get sucked into an extension , and Nathan is ready to take over soon

If you look at the cup winners of the last decade most of them had mix of size , skill and toughness. Having a bunch of midgets who shy away from traffic is not going to cut it. We tried this for the last 15 years and except this year and 08-09 when we finished second and first respectively we've been mostly a bubble team who made the playoffs as the 8th seed and got trounced by physical team in the POs. The proof is in the pudding.

Everyone glows over the Timmins drafting record for the past 11 or 12 years. Here we are, in 2013 and we are no closer to winning a Cup than we were before he took over the drafting duties.

Teams in the NHL play for the Stanley Cup. There is no award for having the most players in the NHL. None.

BPA is a terrible strategy. Look at who we had in Hamilton this season. Carbon copy players (forwards) without very much grit. The average being around 5' 11" and under 200 pounds.

Only 7 players on the Hamilton roster are over 200 pounds. Two of those are Stortini and Hagel. 14 players on Hamilton are under 200 pounds.

There are players throughout the NHL who are productive at under 6 feet and 200 pounds. But..................

When your top 6 in Montreal has only two players over 200 pounds and there is only ONE forward in Hamilton that is over 200 pounds, your organization has a problem.

And that problem is BPA instead of drafting to fill needs.

You are wrong on every level.

Again, you point to us having no cups... well no ****. How do you think we'd get one drafting 17th all the time, not trading for prospects and not getting any good FAs? Not going to happen.

Secondly, Timmins has been amazing. Not going to even waste my time reinforcing this.

Third, even if we did try your strategy, it still wouldn't have worked. You have to really cherrypick the hell out of every draft to try to make it look like we could've done better and that's not the case. Sitting there drafting 17th overall and you're expecting him to draft according to need? Dude, by the time the mid first goes by you're lucky to find an impact player AT ALL. Look at the 2002 draft for example. Weak draft, we get 14th overall, Timmins gets a small forward. Well that small forward turns into a 30 goal guy. Yeah, Higgins disappears (still don't know why) afterwards but he's still a homerun for where we drafted him. You can't blame Timmins for this... He got the guy with the most goals in the draft from the 14th pick on. It's not his fault we're not able to draft Nash or Semin... those guys were already gone. So he does what he has to and gets the small forward. He doesn't win any scoring trophies but it's a great pick for where we got him... and yet you say "where are the cups?" I mean seriously man, point that finger somewhere else.
(Edit) Not sure if Timmins was the HS for 2002. Even if he's not though, my point still stands.

TT got us strong players for where we drafted them. We wasted those assets completely and on top of that never rebuilt. Absolutely NO excuse for letting the players walk away for nothing the way we did... and I haven't even mentioned the Scott Gomez/McD fiasco yet.

Please just stop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by habtastic

Everyone who goes on about how we need to get bigger do not understand that we are in year 1 of a new GM, with big players in our pipeline (who he did NOT sacrifice for rentals - thank god!!), and who has yet to have an offseason after seeing his team play. Not only that, but he has made moves to clear cap space and it is clear he is going to be retooling.

MB has done a great job. But yeah, we need to get bigger. I think he realizes this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ginu

Who are all those posters who said size doesn't matter? There's actually no argument to suggest otherwise.

There's a simple problem here. Anderson is the type of goalie who can make 50 saves. But he has poor rebound control so you have to crash the net. How many of our top 6 players are able to do that against the Sens D? Pacioretty and Gallagher. That's it- nobody else has the skill for it.

Nevermind the rebounds, why the hell aren't we screening this guy? Pathetic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OneSharpMarble

Apparently Edm is looking to move their 1st round pick (7th) for an established defensive dman and pick coming back. I thought Gorges+Montreals 1st for 7th OA would be a good trade, Edm fans were very interested aswell. We would have a shot at Barkov/Lindholm/Drouin if someone falls.

Our defence would miss Gorges but I think we could recover via rookies and FA quickly. I hope Bergeron is ready to make moves and willing to take some chances.

If Edmonton is crazy enough to trade that 7th overall, we should be all over them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandysan

we dont need guys who can only take care of themselves. We need guys who can take care of themselves and our little forwards. Emelin does not fit this mold.

And that's the handicap. It's just pathetic to watch Prust out there with DD or Gionta or whoever whenever a skirmish breaks out... We don't need goons but man, we need bigger players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandysan

The habs have been undersized for years, and I like MB but for a team that was predicted to languish near the bottom, when it was clear we were doing far better than expectations, the unmet need was addressed by signing wiskey. Yes I know we chased sesito, yes I know no one could have predicted moen would stop bringing it or we would lose emelin. that's not going to cut it.

I hope that we did try to chase guys to fit that need and then decided that the price was just too steep ( like clowe's request). We have to go one of two ways, get rid of some or all of the shrimps and bring in players who can take care of themselves or get some protection for our little guys. You can always say " the price was too high" for UFA's as a reason to not fill the need. I dont think that ottawa is in the top 2/3's wrt to team toughness and even they handed us our hats.

MB has done an amazing job. He gets no criticism from me.

Even DD wasn't a bad signing. If we want we can deal him. He's got a very reasonable contract.

I was replying to Southernhab , he says we need goons on our roster. I just pointed out that Det has played pretty well for many years with not much grit or goons. The average size/weight of their roster most of those years would be what the habs are now.

If Habs had one natural goal scorer or playmaker none of this OTT nonsense would be relevant. Habs could play with speed and not worry about the goonery but they don't have that one dominant player yet. Hoping Galyenchuk can become that

Let's see. Lindstrom, Rafalski, zetteberg, datsyuk, franzen... High end talent which we do not have. They also have had tough and/or physical guys over the years in holmstron, Stuart, bertuzzi,may, kronwall, etc.

If we were soft but highly skilled there wouldn't be that big of a problem. Sadly we are soft and lack top end talent.

Lol at the guy who said grit was found in smaller players. I think some posters take this topic personally because they are small themselves. Nothing wrong with a small player or two. There is a problem when you have a lot of small players and your big players are soft.

And I'm still looking for anyone who even brought Antropov or Ponikarovsky's name into the conversation.

You're talking as if grit was to be found in small players and that they are tough to play against. I can tell you haven't done any sport of any kind at any competitive level. It doesn't even need to be hockey for that matter. Size matters. It's physics 101. And as gritty as he may be when he's on his game, a 5'8 player will always have more difficulty applying pressure than a 6'2 player. He'll have a harder time winning his battles, and is more likely to get abused than a bigger one.

But keep coming up with those ridiculous non-arguments about how people are talking about Antropov and Ponikarovsky when it's clearly not the case.

I'm sure you enjoyed Tom Pyatt's physicality and that for you, Halpern is a must-sign this summer...

Most guys under 5'11" would have never made the NHL without grit. They have had to battle and win against bigger players in Junior/college/AHL.

Not sure what Top Pyatt has to do with anything.

If having a team made up only of big players was the answer I'm sure somebody would have gone that route and won.

Let's see. Lindstrom, Rafalski, zetteberg, datsyuk, franzen... High end talent which we do not have. They also have had tough and/or physical guys over the years in holmstron, Stuart, bertuzzi,may, kronwall, etc.

If we were soft but highly skilled there wouldn't be that big of a problem. Sadly we are soft and lack top end talent.

Lol at the guy who said grit was found in smaller players. I think some posters take this topic personally because they are small themselves. Nothing wrong with a small player or two. There is a problem when you have a lot of small players and your big players are soft.

How does a team with no high end talent have 2 top rookie of the year candidates, a perennial all-star goalie, Norris candidate d-man, perennial top 10 overall NHL d-man etc

And that's the handicap. It's just pathetic to watch Prust out there with DD or Gionta or whoever whenever a skirmish breaks out... We don't need goons but man, we need bigger players.

MB has done an amazing job. He gets no criticism from me.

Even DD wasn't a bad signing. If we want we can deal him. He's got a very reasonable contract.

so if you had your druthers, what would you do with Gallagher ? I love the way the kid plays, is he our exception for a smurf ( every team gets one or two but not 8)? or do we ship him just for size ?

I'm not anti-small players provided they bring something special and the team is committed to protection by proxy, which we have not done for quite some time now. our tough guys are all middlewights at best who have a hard time protecting themselves from the real heavys much less our small forwards.

I'm okay with MB so far but its not like this lack of size snuck up on us, its been endmic for years. I can see if we were where we were last year you keep the course and develop talent. i'm completely against trading young assets for short term toughness, but a lot of people predicted that we would get rag dolled in the playoffs. And we have been by a team that is likely in the bottom third of team toughness ( the sens)

I watched the late game last night ( blues kings). I know they dont like each other but if you took out either team and replaced them with the habs, I'm not sure we make it through three full periods before we wave the white flag.

I dont think we are a contender this year and I dont know how close we were for sesito or clowe but if they walk you have to have some contingency. I dont see how wiskey is a part of this contingency. He's good for depth but we should be addressing the gaping holes that we know are going to be exploited in a 7 game series. We always hear " we are going to get bigger" "we are going to get grittier" " these things take time" " we are not going to sign albatross contracts" all of which I agree with, but if the sens hand us our hats this year and we dont get tougher next year, i'm going to think its noting but broken promises.

so if you had your druthers, what would you do with Gallagher ? I love the way the kid plays, is he our exception for a smurf ( every team gets one or two but not 8)? or do we ship him just for size ?

BG can play on my team anytime. But he shouldn't be paired with DD,Gionta,Plecks... too many small guys in the top 6.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandysan

I'm not anti-small players provided they bring something special and the team is committed to protection by proxy, which we have not done for quite some time now. our tough guys are all middlewights at best who have a hard time protecting themselves from the real heavys much less our small forwards.

I'm okay with MB so far but its not like this lack of size snuck up on us, its been endmic for years. I can see if we were where we were last year you keep the course and develop talent. i'm completely against trading young assets for short term toughness, but a lot of people predicted that we would get rag dolled in the playoffs. And we have been by a team that is likely in the bottom third of team toughness ( the sens)

I watched the late game last night ( blues kings). I know they dont like each other but if you took out either team and replaced them with the habs, I'm not sure we make it through three full periods before we wave the white flag.

I dont think we are a contender this year and I dont know how close we were for sesito or clowe but if they walk you have to have some contingency. I dont see how wiskey is a part of this contingency. He's good for depth but we should be addressing the gaping holes that we know are going to be exploited in a 7 game series. We always hear " we are going to get bigger" "we are going to get grittier" " these things take time" " we are not going to sign albatross contracts" all of which I agree with, but if the sens hand us our hats this year and we dont get tougher next year, i'm going to think its noting but broken promises.

We need to get bigger up front. I dont think there's any question about it. If say Bobby Ryan is available, it would be nice to get him. Young, big, decent skill... depends on the price of course but we need to get bigger up front. I'm tired of seeing us pushed around. And for the love of God get players who will GO TO THE NET.

In order to add players with size/toughness, we also need to remove players from the lineup to create space. These are the candidates IMO:

Gionta and Markov: Both vets in the last year of their deals. Is it time to pass the torch to younger players and is there a market for either this summer?

Ryder: UFA - a month ago many wanted to re-sign him to a $4M+ contract. Do we have players internally that can add toughness AND replace his scoring? Are we guaranteed to find a player that can do either on the UFA market?

Plekanec: This guy is a horse for us at forward. This one will be interesting as there will be a market for him no doubt if they make him available.

Gorges and Diaz: Both undersized D with different strengths. I like what both bring, but does each bring enough to keep around? If we could combine the strengths of both into one player then find a player with size and toughness for the other role, that would be ideal, but also impossible.

Basically a lot of questions to be answered this summer.

* I don't consider guys like DD and Bouillon to be options to upgrade in the size/toughness category since DD just signed a multi-year contract and Bouillon re-upped for another year and is tough for his size.

I deleted the rest of your post because it is simply you making excuses.

The Stanley Cup is the reason all teams in the NHL play the game.

After all those years of our drafting philosophy, BPA, we are no closer to the Cup than we were in 2003. And Hamilton finished either in last or close to last place in the AHL with our draft prospects.